''The Gem'' (1907–1939) was a

story paper A story paper is a periodical publication similar to a literary magazine, but featuring illustrations and text stories, and aimed towards children and teenagers. Also known in Britain as "boys' weeklies", story papers were phenomenally popular ...

published in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

Amalgamated Press The Amalgamated Press (AP) was a British newspaper and magazine publishing company founded by journalist and entrepreneur Alfred Harmsworth (1865–1922) in 1901, gathering his many publishing ventures together under one banner. At one point the ...

in the early 20th century, predominantly featuring the activities of boys at the fictional school St. Jim's. These stories were all written using the pen-name of "Martin Clifford," the majority by Charles Hamilton (who was more widely known as "Frank Richards," the creator of

Billy Bunter William George Bunter is a fictional schoolboy created by Charles Hamilton using the pen name Frank Richards. He features in stories set at Greyfriars School, a fictional English public school in Kent, originally published in the boys' weekly ...

). Many issues also included a shorter serial story (a variety of detective, school, and adventure yarns were featured); these parts of the paper were not written by Charles Hamilton. The most famous St Jim's characters were

Tom Merry Tom Merry is the principal character in the "St Jim's" stories which appeared in the boy's weekly paper, ''The Gem'', from 1907 to 1939. The stories were all written using the pen-name of Martin Clifford, the majority by Charles Hamilton who wa ...

and Arthur Augustus D'Arcy, better known as Gussy, both of whom featured on many of the covers.

History

The first series (issues 1-48)

The first issue appeared in February 1907 and featured an adventure story (as did issues 2, 4-6, 8, and 10). The first school story appeared in issue number 3, dated 10 March 1907, and introduced Tom Merry as a new boy at a school called Clavering College. In issue number 11, Clavering was closed down and the boys and masters transferred to St Jim's, a school which had previously featured in a boys' paper called ''Pluck''. From then onwards a long story of St Jim's became the main weekly feature of ''The Gem''.

The second series (issues 1-1663)

In the week ending 15 February 1908, ''The Gem'' started a new series, prompted by

starting a new school story paper called ''

The Magnet ''The Magnet'' was a British weekly boys' story paper published by Amalgamated Press. It ran from 1908 to 1940, publishing a total of 1,683 issues. Each issue cost a halfpenny and contained a long school story about the boys of Greyfriars Sch ...

''. Both the first and second series used a distinctive blue/green cover and the vast majority of stories were written by Charles Hamilton. In 1919, the blue/green cover was replaced with a white cover and over the following years, Hamilton produced a reducing number of stories until by the mid-1920s, he only provided a minority of the stories that appeared, and in 1929 he produced no stories at all. Following a suggestion by Eric Fayne (who was a headmaster and a Charles Hamilton enthusiast) in 1931, ''The Gem'' started reprinting the early stories, beginning with the arrival of Tom Merry at St Jim's in issue 1221. This policy continued until spring 1939 when Hamilton was persuaded to resume writing for the paper starting with issue 1625. In 1933 the paper was merged with The Nelson Lee Library. The paper ceased publication in December 1939, the result of declining circulation (down to 15,800 copies a week)Richards, Jeffrey. ''Happiest Days: The Public Schools in English Fiction'' (Manchester University Press, 1988) , p. 289. and wartime paper shortages.

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